SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

He looked into the man’s eyes, puzzled by their color. Hadn’t they been blue a moment before? He couldn’t be certain, maybe it had just been the lighting, but now they were brown, dark and deep and focused on him to the exclusion of everything else.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there when that happened.”

Those dark eyes stayed on his, and he swallowed softly. He was also a very good liar. He had been for a long time.

Finally the man nodded. “Kill his bitch.”

“What? NO!” Mark started pulling the trigger on his shotgun and felt the impact move up his arms as the stranger grabbed the long barrel and pointed it toward the wall. The hammer rose and fell and set off an explosion that blasted through the wood paneling along the wall and shattered the plaster behind it.

Mark looked past the stranger’s brutal face just as the thing on the ground stood, rising in height until it could barely stand in the room. When he’d been young Mark had a St Bernard that used to stand on its back legs and place its paws on his shoulders when it came to greet him. That old dog had stood close to six feet tall when it was in that position and it had weighed in at 185 pounds. The thing that reached out with one paw and grabbed Donna by the throat and yanked her forward was much bigger.

Donna let out a cry of fear and desperate pain as the claws on the thing sank slightly into her neck and drew blood. She was lifted completely off her feet and hauled toward the bared teeth in front of her. Ellen and Lou tried to hold on, to anchor their mother, but were shaken off easily by the monster.

Mark tried to keep his grip on the shotgun, but the man he’d just tried to kill ripped it out of his hands and cast it aside. The parka covered arm wrapped around his neck and spun him forward into the living room proper as the other dark shapes moved easily out of the way.

Mark struggled, he did, but it didn’t seem to do him the least bit of good. He fought and kicked and cursed, his mind focused solely on getting to Donna and saving her.

“Watch this, Loman. You did this. Remember that.” There was no humor in the voice, only regret tinged with anger.

“Oh, God! Please! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, just leave her alone!” His voice trembled and broke as he pleaded.

The man behind him grabbed his hair in one hand and held his skull with enough force to make the bones creak. “Keep watching! You keep watching, Loman or I swear I’ll make your children suffer for hours.”

Donna had tears running down her face and her teeth bared as she hyperventilated. She’d been trying to get away all along but the grip on her neck was simply too powerful and despite trying to rake her nails over the furry arm that held her, she hadn’t managed to get through the thick pelt of hair to catch any flesh.

For the first time, Mark finally, really focused on the face of the thing that carried his wife closer. He was a hunter; he knew damned near every animal on the planet well enough to identify it. This grinning thing was nothing that should have existed. There were marks in the black fur, patterns within the shadow of the rich, dark pelt. The face bore every indication of belonging to a predator, from the forward facing eyes to the wrinkled muzzle above a set of teeth designed to cut flesh and break bones. It was standing on two hind legs, but the way they bent made it obvious the thing was more comfortable running on all fours. The torso was wide and, being a man who prided himself on staying in shape, Mark knew that some of the clusters of muscle that stretched over the ribcage had never been designed to accommodate a four-legged creature.

The eyes looked back at him and took his measure and found him lacking.

“Mark! Please! Don’t let them do this!” Donna was panicked, and he couldn’t find any fault in that. He was terrified himself; imagining the damage the teeth would cause and already knowing the reasons for the attack.

“Oh, Donna. I’m so sorry, honey.”

The stranger spoke again, his voice a deadly rumble. “Are you now? You certainly weren’t crying then, were you?”

“She has nothing to do with this!” He tried one last time to break free, and felt the fingers holding his head push forward, driving thick nails into his scalp. The pain was enough to make him stop, to make him scream out again.

“I know. She’s innocent in this. That’s what makes it such a shame.”

The beast holding Donna looked at the man behind Mark and turned its head quizzically.

Two words and every hope that Mark had of coming out of this alive fell to pieces. Two words and his entire world exploded into ruin.

The man said, “Do it.”